France has raised its terror alert warning to its highest level following Friday's terrorist attack in Moscow, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has said.
The French PM took to social media to make the announcement - that the threat level would be raised to "attack emergency" - following a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron and senior officials on Sunday.
Attal said: "Following the attack in Moscow, a Defense and National Security Council was convened this evening at the Elysée by the President of the Republic.
"Given the Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the attack and the threats weighing on our country, we have decided to raise the Vigipirate [France's national security alert system] posture to its highest level: attack emergency."
French PM Gabriel Attal (top-right) said the threat level was raised after Isis' claim of responsibility for the attack
Reuters
The bumping-up of the threat level to "attack emergency" is activated following an attack in France or overseas, or when security services think an attack is imminent.
It means exceptional security measures can be imposed, including increased patrols by armed forces in public areas like airports, religious sites and train stations.
This is the second time in less than a year that the threat level has been raised to this extent - the last time the French government took such a decision was in 2023 after a mass stabbing in Arras in the country's north.
The move comes just months before Paris hosts the 2024 Olympic Games - which has seen its opening ceremony, slated to take place on the city's River Seine, scaled back over theoretical terror concerns.
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The raising of the alert level allows for increased armed security presence in public spaces in France
Wikimedia Commons
July's opening ceremony is set to be the first ever to take place in a public space - but a senior French interior ministry official said Macron had demanded halving the number of spectators from 600,000 following crowd control and security concerns, Politico reported.
The official said the "main threat" to the Games was "Islamist terrorism" - but conceded French intelligence had not yet identified specific plots, and groups like Isis and Al-Qaeda did not have the financial capacity to carry out attacks in France.
The UK's foreign travel advice for Britons says terrorists are "very likely to try to carry out attacks in France" and counsels vigilance due to "a high threat of terrorist attack globally affecting UK interests and British nationals".
France's cautions are a direct result of the terrorist attack in Moscow on Friday evening which left 137 attendees at a rock concert dead, and injured almost 200 more.
The violence - which also saw attackers set fire to the venue - followed warnings by the US embassy in Moscow earlier this month for Americans to avoid concert venues and large crowds.
An Islamic State splinter cell, Isis-Khorasan (Isis-K), claimed responsibility for the attacks - but Russian officials refused to acknowledge these claims, instead alleging Ukraine had "prepared a window" for attackers to escape Russia after the attacks.
France has had to deal with a barrage of Isis attacks over the last decade - most notably, the violence in Paris in 2015 which left 131 civilians dead and hundreds more injured.
The string of terrorist offences saw thousands of French authorities deployed across the country in a wide-ranging nationwide operation, Opération Sentinelle.
